


with roses beside

by indemnis



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, End of the World, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indemnis/pseuds/indemnis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the world has arrived and Dan and Phil spend their last moments together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with roses beside

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for minimal smut, character death (well, it is the end of the world, so)

The wind is howling and it rips the serene scene before them apart, the cradle of all their hopes and dreams crushed into pieces in the very same instant.

The world unfolds before them and it instils no fear, bothers no soul and disturbs no peace. Dan is soft and quiet in Phil’s arms and Time has come to a complete standstill. For good or for bad, only God knows.

“Dan,” Phil calls out, drawing small gentle circles on the back of Dan’s hand. They spin and twirl and spin and Dan is enchanted by the movement, by the long bony finger, by the supple skin.

“Mm?” Dan asks, diving further into their duvets, his bare chest poor at withstanding the cold. The trees outside of their apartment are pulled out from their roots, their neighbours wailing about disasters, people running along, saving their lives, hollering about Armageddon.

Phil understands. Of course things wouldn’t be everlasting. Of course all good things have to come to an end. Death was inevitable—had he sinned?

When they pass their judgement upon him, would they decide that he deserved a place up above, beyond the clouds? Or maybe he was destined for misery in the deepest, darkest places beneath the Earth’s crust?

He takes a brief look at Dan, buried all the way into his blankets, only his brown almond-shaped eyes sticking out, and he laughs. He pulls the younger man closer to himself, feeling the way his heat radiates onto his skin, seeps through his pores and eats into his nerves.

Oh, Phil has definitely sinned, he thinks.

“Don’t laugh—we’re facing the last moments of mankind. I don’t think it’s appropriate.” Dan says, even if the words coming out of his mouth don’t sound like his own. He thinks he fears judgement. He doesn’t believe in the afterlife, but some things are better prevented than cured.

“Screw appropriate,” Phil says quietly, kissing Dan on the tip of his nose, before holding back. He runs his fingers along Dan’s arm, “we’re breaking all the rules already—fucking to Muse as the world ends; how interesting.”

Dan offers a small chuckle in response, before curling back into Phil’s warmth, letting out a rather contented sigh.

“Tell me,” Phil asks, placing his chin on Dan’s messy mop of hair. It tickles and Dan laughs, worming his way out of it. Phil smiles. “Are you afraid of dying?”

Dan stills, as if in this crucial moment it is still possible to challenge Fate and ask for one’s life back from its clutches. “Not really,” he says with a small shrug, hoping for Phil to not realise how his face is turning green.

Phil knows. Of course he does.

He smiles, the sort of seemingly settling smile filled with secrets, one that makes Dan not know whether to snuggle up closer or run as far as he can. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“I’m not,” Dan is stubborn, never backing down without a fight, but he regrets his words the minute they leave his lips, just like many other similar instances in his life. He doesn’t think, he speaks, he wants to take them back, he’s too prideful and the damage is done.

“Okay, brave little man,” Phil says, appeasing, no longer challenging, no longer frowning at the way Dan never wills himself to lose in an argument, how he’s always so wilful and saying things before snivelling about how it wasn’t right a few seconds later.

Dan pouts and Phil kisses him briefly and it pulls back out into a grin.

“Maybe, just a little,” Dan confesses and Phil thinks he’s endearing, the way he’s curled up into a ball from the cold, the noise and he doesn’t want a single speck of dust to land on him, doesn’t want him to suffer a single bit.

But maybe Phil’s job is done here. Now he cannot afford to shelter Dan—not when he’s in the deeper abysses himself and perhaps this is the best ending.

“There’s nothing to be scared. You said it yourself; death is inevitable and there’s no point worrying about something that is going to happen,” Phil is coaxing, like a young parent putting his child to sleep and Dan is not buying it.

He slaps Phil’s hand away from his arm, but presses his cheek against the older man’s neck, sighing softly. “I say a lot of things and I regret even more, Phil.”

Phil is slumped into his bedframe and he cannot help but think about their neighbours, the stout old man who has trouble climbing up the stairs, the middle-aged man downstairs who always has loud sex, the lady upstairs who smiles at Phil when he holds the door for her and says ‘why, thank you, young lad!’.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Our neighbours.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Very delightful post-sex train of thought, Lester.”

“Why, thank you, young lad.”

Dan laughs and in this moment they hope and wish that they can have an additional second spent in the heat of each other’s bodies. Dan is soft and satiated, Phil is calm and quiet, still running his fingertips along Dan’s skin.

“I’m sorry.” Phil doesn’t realise he’s choking on his voice until Dan turns around immediately, his curls whipping Phil in the face and he bursts into tearful laughter.

“Why are you crying?” Dan asks, his long fingers clawing at Phil’s face, his blunt fingernails kept from scratching the older man’s skin off. He is desperate and helpless as he wipes Phil’s tears away.

Phil breathes but he coughs when his sniffle is pushed down the wrong side and Dan is biting on his lower lip, sitting cross-legged on their bed as he grabs a piece of tissue from the bedside table and dabs at Phil’s face.

There is silence between them, just the sound of Dan’s tissue scraping against Phil’s skin. Phil presses his lips together and grabs Dan’s wrist softly, shaking his head.

“That’s fine, thanks.”

Dan blinks as Phil sniffs and he places the used tissue on the table, beside the two silver bands. “What’s wrong?” Dan asks, eyebrows knitted together and forehead creased. Phil shakes his head again, forcing a smile, the way one end of his lips pulls up just slightly makes Dan want to give him a very big hug.

That’s exactly what he does, no questions asked, just Phil wrapped up in Dan’s arms, nose pressed into his naked chest. “You’re stupid,” Dan says, his fingers weaving in and out of Phil’s jet black hair.

There is more silence, save for Phil nestling his head in Dan’s embrace, pressing his ear against his skin.

_Another additional second, please._

“I wish we didn’t have to die,” Phil says suddenly and Dan tenses, fingertips that were dancing on Phil’s broad shoulders stop.

Dan chortles, stuttering as he does, concealing his awkwardness with a thin piece of paper. “What? Come on, what a spoilsport; weren’t you just appeasing me a while ago?”

Phil smiles, a sad one where the ends of his eyes seem to droop, one that makes Dan’s heart clench. “I don’t want you to be hurt in any way.”

“You know that’s not possible.”

“I know, but I can want what I want, right?”

Dan smiles but somehow the ends of his lips refuse to pull up. “Think a little for yourself, Phil.”

Phil places his forehead on Dan’s shoulder, letting vulnerability eat him up for just a moment. He can afford this—just one moment, it’s not too much to ask for, is it?

_Just one._

“I am. ‘Dan and Phil’, right? Half of a single entity, isn’t it? When I think of you, I think for myself,” Phil doesn’t gauge how cheesy the line is and Dan doesn’t remind him how words like that both send a dagger into his chest and make him feel like the most fortunate person in the whole world.

Phil is quiet, humming lowly.

“They say good people don’t have to die,” Phil says.

“They say good people die and go to Heaven. We all have to die.”

“Not like this.”

“At least we get to be together when it happens. Fate has been kinder to us than we could ever ask for. For all the wrong I’ve done in this lifetime, for all my lack of affection, for all my cynicism and sarcasm, for all the people I’ve hurt,” he glances closely at Phil, but the older man doesn’t seem to have any intention to look back up, “I should be really, _really_ thankful for this.”

“You always say that,” Phil mumbles into Dan’s skin, “but you’re such a nice person. Don’t put yourself down like that anymore.”

Dan shakes his head and he smiles. It sounds more like a snort. “You’re the one person who somehow sees me as all-good.”

Phil’s hair tickles Dan’s chin. “I see all of you that’s good. I don’t believe anyone is fully good, but you are a wonderful person and there’s just no need to see otherwise.”

“I’m dying, Phil, we don’t need to appease or console me anymore.”

“Fair enough. But really, though.”

“Thanks.”

There is silence freezing over the both of them, but Dan heaves and Phil pushes himself away to sit back up straight.

“Do you want to view?” Dan asks, his lips pursed into a thin line and Phil nods, clambering out of bed stark naked. Nudity is something they share, no longer a farce they have to keep up, so Dan takes the outstretched hand and they stand by the windowsill.

There is water on the streets, a huge tidal wave crashing against their building. Dan swears he feels the floor vibrate. Cars are floating, people washed up against concrete structures.

It is chaos and people are scrambling for their lives. Dan wonders if there is really any place to run when Mother Nature seems so intent on exterminating their species. How very miniscule our role in the galaxy, helpless in the face of Nature, hiding when retribution comes knocking on our front doors.

He likes to think he and Phil are very brave this way, stowed away quietly in their apartment, looking as the world wreaks havoc and people pay the price for their deeds.

Dan is suddenly pressed up against Phil’s side. “Fuck me,” he says softly and Phil breathes. They make love against the window, slow, quiet, oblivious to the sirens that are going off, ignorant of the lives being lost outside their small little world.

Phil is patient and he cries again, tears gathering in his eyes as Dan breathes loudly, desperate and yearning and eager. He will miss the feeling of his skin against his calloused one, miss the way Dan does a low whine when he doesn’t get enough, miss the way Dan bites down on his lip as Phil enters him.

He will remember the way his body arches for him, coupled with a deep moan, his hands scrambling to find Phil’s, dragging and leading them to his hips, raspy groaning in his ears. The way Dan grinds against him, rocking his hips as he sits on Phil, begging, crying, pining. Phil will take him and his legs wrap around his torso and they fall back into habit, fitting in closely like pieces of a puzzle that match, Dan asking for more and Phil relenting.

He will miss him so much and this makes him want to cry, the way it wrenches his heart and crushes it into pieces, knowing that he won’t be able to see him crawl into his embrace anymore, seeing his eyelids close as he falls into deep slumber.

“Dan?” he asks as they are seated on the carpeted floor, Dan is messy, filthy and slumped by his side. He takes a quick look at the boy sitting beside him, willing himself to not look, or he’ll cry and it’ll be very anticlimactic.

He seems to see seventeen-year-old Dan again, the vulnerable young boy who has fear written all over his face, the way his shoulders hunch and half his face veiled by a long mop of brown fringe, the awkwardness in his greeting when he first meets Phil, the admiration in his eyes.

He remembers every bit of Dan, every memory with him, be it good or bad. Maybe if he prays hard enough, they’ll be alright after all.

“Yeah?” the younger man asks, weaving his fingers with Phil’s and he trembles. Maybe that’s just the ground again.

The foundations of the apartment building shake and Phil feels his heart in his mouth. What’s a good way to go? What should he say?

Should he burden Dan with solemn romantic words that promise eternal love? Should he say something really cool so he can laugh, they can laugh and it’ll be easier to deal with what’s about to come?

“I—”

“I love you,” Dan says suddenly and Phil tenses. He isn’t one to say things like that. “One of the few instances I say things and don’t regret them, be thankful,” Dan jokes and Phil chuckles and he thinks it’s okay.

“Hey?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll see you soon,” Phil says as he kisses Dan’s forehead, when an enormous tidal wave charges their way and he closes his eyes.

As he does, the only prayer he makes is for Death to take them both painlessly, simultaneously, and in the netherworld they can finally be eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic of Dan and Phil and I'm really nervous and happy about posting it! I have a few others stowed away but this was written in a single seating, so I guess when inspiration hits you in the face there's no running from it, is it?
> 
> I hope you liked it and please leave kudos/comments if you do! I'm open to any suggestions and would love to hear from you. 
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
